Preview Print Jobs (get job from server?)

[Helge Blischke]

Ken Tanzer wrote:
> Hi.  We're running a computer lab where various workstations send their print jobs to a FC6 machine running a CUPS server.  CUPS is set to hold the jobs until they are manually released.  We want a way to be able to preview the jobs before they are printed.
> 
> Is there currently any way to do so?  It doesn't seem like there is.  If not, can anyone provide a sense of how much work would be involved, and/or any general ideas or pointers for how to go about doing so?  (I'm guessing you would need a way for a CUPS client to ask a server to send a copy of a particular job.)
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> 
> Ken
> 
> p.s.,  I figured I'd post this straight to the developer's list, since Opher Shachar posted a similar question on the general mailing list (http://cups.org/newsgroups.php?gcups.general+v:27666), and it got no reply.

What I would do to minimize the necessary efforts is the following:

- For each printer, set up a "clone" printer which differs from the original only
   in the following respects:
   -- use a wrapper script for e.g. gv as backend,
   -- force application/vnd.cups_postscript as the printer's native
      data type.
- do not advertize the original printers (if you already use CUPS 1.2.x)
- print to the original printer from gv (it should accept an option
   like
	-printCommand "lp -d origprinter options"

Otherwise you would have to evaluate the leading part of the filter chain
(processing all the mime stuff etc.) and run the filters yourself.

Helge

-- 
Helge Blischke
Softwareentwicklung

H.Blischke at acm.org